Feige On “Doctor Strange” Ties To The MCU

A bunch of set reports related to Marvel’s “Doctor Strange” made their way online this morning with a couple of key quotes about the new film and its ties into the greater MCU continuity. Here’s the most pertinent facts assembled from various outlets.

Marvel President Kevin Feige was asked if we’ll see an Infinity Stone in the film to which he said:

“If you are tracking such things, perhaps — but we don’t get into it in this movie, because again, we’ve got… there’s a lot to take in, in this movie. There are a lot of new concepts, a lot of new characters. There’s a lot of new mythologies that we didn’t want to clutter it up by talking about other MacGuffins.”

The film also introduces The Ancient One and her disciples of Kamar-Taj, a group of powerful sorcerers who’ve existed for many years. That begs the obvious question, why haven’t we seen any of them before now? Turns out they have greater concerns than alien invasions – they have to protect the integrity of our whole dimension. Feige says:

“This [“Doctor Strange”] is very much a standalone introduction to a very complex character and a very complex world, which — through this movie, and until maybe some upcoming movies — is relatively self-contained and independent.

There are people inhabiting the same world, who are stopping buildings from falling down and robots from doing this or aliens from doing that, these people in this movie are stopping inter dimensional forces from wiping out all of reality. So, although it doesn’t necessarily come up, we’ve always sort of assumed that the sorcerers have bigger fish to fry.

When they hear there’s something happening in the city, or there’s a bank being robbed, they’re not thinking about it. They’re thinking about, ‘If we don’t keep vigilant, our sense of reality will disappear and there won’t be a bank to rob and there won’t be a city to be conquered.’

The filmmakers deliberately tried to avoid doing set pieces and displays of magic that look like everything we’re used to (ie. “Harry Potter”). Instead, they’ve come up with some real trippy stuff. Feige says:

“We wanted to do something different, and we wanted to tap into this notion of the multiverse, of dimensions right next to our own. And if you were able to tap into those dimensions, and those other powers, and what could you do if you pulled aspects of those other dimensions into our realm. All in the interest of creating a visual tapestry that is totally different in terms of an action scene we’ve seen in any other movies… And in doing so, giving a canvas for an action scene totally different than anything we’ve ever done before. So something that starts as a footchase becomes totally unrecognizable. Something that starts as we’ve got to stop the clicking clock before it goes off is completely turned on its head.”

Mads Mikkelsen’s Kaecilius is the film’s antagonist, but director Scott Derrickson essentially confirms he’s just the on the ground villain in the film, there’s a puppet master at work and It’s a relationship Derrickson likens to Sauron and Saruman in “The Lord of the Rings”:

“From the beginning, I was pitching an antagonist who was rooted in the real world, so that there could be an intimate relatability between Strange and his adversary, but who was empowered by something else. Something otherworldly. And I’ll say this—another character straight from the comics.”

There’s also a bunch of new photos and posters for the film out which you can see below. “Doctor Strange” opens in cinemas on November 4th.